The Pairing Trilogy
by White Butterfly
Summary: Three stories taken from my 'Assorted Drabbles of the Fullmetal kind' that are to be read together. RoyEd, AlRiza and HavocWinry.
1. Eating breakfast

**Title:** Eating breakfast

**Style: **Drabble  
**Genre:** General, Romance  
**Rating:** PG  
**Warning:** Yaoi themes

This is, in part, inspired by Yandoryn's 'Coffee and Snuggles' fic. Originally I swore I would only ever write RoyEd as a crack pairing, so thus I put them in this situation and threw in several more crackish pairings.  
However, this breakfast fic got shortened drastically, doesn't contain much RoyEd at all and spawned a mini-trilogy which looks at each of the so called 'crackish' pairings.

So go ahead. Enjoy my first official attempt at writing RoyEd. (Even though I publish this only now after publishing three RoyEds.)

* * *

"Why," a ruffled looking Roy Mustang asked the awake looking blonde in front of him, "do you have to eat that," he paused, "when we have muesli and toast." He waved his cup of coffee at him while munching on his own breakfast. 

Edward looked up from his bowl of cornflakes. "I've always had it."

"But there's food like bacon and eggs, pancakes and toast."

"So?" Ed dug his spoon back into the bowl of cornflakes. "I like them."

"And what's so wrong with muesli? It's healthier and it's more filling."

"I said I don't like it."

Roy leaned his chin on his propped up hands. "I wonder why that is... Maybe you had a bad experience with it once. You know, all sorts of irrational fears start when you're very young."

"You don't have cereal, yet you have it in your cupboard. Besides," Ed flicked his spoon at the older man, "cornflakes have always been my cereal while muesli's been Al's. We'd get into fights when we were little about what we'd eat in the mornings."

"Your mother wouldn't prepare your breakfast?" Roy raised his eyebrow quizzically.

The blonde paused before answering, the spoon resting against his chin as he looked down at the table in memory. "She would, usually. But there were days we'd get up earlier than her and we'd head down to the kitchen. Me and Alphonse would always argue over which cereal we'd have. Al would always want muesli and I'd always want cornflakes." He dug for another spoonful of soggy cornflakes, slurping at them before grinning at his older companion. "We'd end up waking her and she'd make us toast and eggs. Kind of like what you sometimes have." A smile was shared between the two before Roy sipped at his coffee.

"So, what did you have when you didn't wake up early?"

Ed paused, chewing his breakfast. Gulping he said, "We'd get our favourite. Muesli for Al and cornflakes for me. Mom would have toast and tea after she had laid out our breakfast. Kind of like you, only without the coffee."

"Poor woman. Never knew what she was missing out on." He froze, the coffee cup halfway between table and lips, as he realised that maybe the comment wasn't the most sensible one to have said and quickly changed to something else.  
"You'll need to put on warm clothing today. It's snowing."

Edward looked absently out the window as he carried his cereal-less bowl of milk to the sink. "Yeah, my automail always contracts in the cold..." He stood at the sink gazing at the falling flakes for a worrying amount of time.

"I'm sorry if I brought up any unpleasant memories." Roy hurriedly apologised, thinking he had offended him.

Ed turned to face him, a slight smile on his face. "Mom never really liked bitter things, so it's no big deal." He walked over to Roy's seat. "She wouldn't have missed it. But," goldenrod eyes focused on dark ones, "I quite like the taste of coffee."  
Edward's lips descended onto their coffee flavoured target.


	2. The taste of chocolate

**Title:** The taste of chocolate

**Style: **Drabble  
**Genre:** General, Romance  
**Rating:** PG

Thanks goes to Lina (of BlackMercifulFaerie) to betaing this. Love also goes out to all AlRiza fans.

* * *

In Belgium, in that other world, they had visited a small shop. It had been filled with a heavy, sweet scent and when Edward had ordered two bowls of a similar smelling thing, Alphonse hadn't known what to make of it. 

"What is this brother?" He had looked apprehensively at the steaming bowls filled with indugently brown and creamy liquid.

"Hot chocolate. Drink it, it's good." With that his brother had lifted the bowl to his lips and blown on it before sipping.

Al had hesitantly lifted the bowl to his lips and did the same thing as his brother just had, the hot concotion luxurious as it nearly burnt his tongue.

He was surprised that it would be so creamy and thick; sweet and milky.

"It's good isn't it?" Edward had politely wiped his lips on a napkin. "They make good chocolate here, all around this countryside in fact. No one else can copy the Belgians in how they blend the cream, sugar and bitter cocoa." His brother sat back contently, his hands around the bowl.

"It starts out bitter?" He had looked down at his bowl, at the contents he had fallen in love with.

"Yeah, they add sugar, milk and cream to it. Just shows what else milk can transform, eh?" Edward had munched on the little cookies that had come with the chocolate as Alphonse looked at his chocolate.

Who knew it started out bitter, only to be mellowed by cream and sugar? Yet it didn't suffer from being toned down; it only grew richer and deeper.

He was at first enthralled and then delighted with that first opulent taste, that delight turning into appreciation.

-

Alphonse loved the taste of chocolate.

When they had managed to come back home, he had tried to find it, his only success a poor, expensive substitute found far past the Southern border.

"Did I ever tell you of the time brother took me to a chocolate shop?" Al inhaled apprieciatively.

"No, why?" a voice thrummed with contentment.

"We had hot chocolate there, a drink that was sweet and milky though it started in it's simplest form as bitter." A gasp interrupted halfway, not deterring Al's reminiscing.  
"I could never find a replacement once we came back. Nothing quite like it." He softly kissed, no, sucked at smooth, creamy skin.  
"Instead I found-" He stopped, instead worrying at her shoulder, inhaling and tasting her.

"Instead you found what?" Her gentle voice and hands lifted his attention from those two senses and brought his hazel eyes to her darker, melted chocolate ones.

-

Those same, hazel eyes shimmered, glimmered in happiness before they came closer.

"I found you."

Al's mouth closed over her's; him enjoying Riza's better-than-chocolate taste and she . . . she thought she could smell a bittersweet, rich and smooth flavour as they kissed and tasted; shared and explored.


	3. Scent of smoke

**Title:** Scent of smoke

**Style: **Drabble  
**Genre:** General, Romance  
**Rating:** PG

Last of these three drabbles and yes, this is a HavocWinry

* * *

"There are different types of people who smoke in the world," Winry announced to the stars, sitting on the park bench.

There were two groups they can go in, she thought.  
There were those who didn't care that other people don't like smoking, who just blew the smoke into other people's faces as they walked around, who walked along swinging their pipe or cigarette, almost singeing you if you happened to be walking behind them.  
They were arrogant and didn't seem to care about others around them, but unfortunately, the majority of those who chose to smoke were that type, giving the small group who weren't a bad name.

That small group of people who were thoughtful of other people, of those who didn't smoke. Maybe it was because out of all the people they knew, they were the only ones who smoked, or maybe it was because they were more compassionate.

Granny was a compassionate smoker, she let the smoke trickle out the corner of her mouth and never blew it into people's faces.  
When all three of them first started school and Granny had walked them there and back, she always walked on the other side of the path, slightly behind, silently smoking and guarding them.  
When Winry had baths when she was five or so and Granny had washed her, Granny had always placed the unlit pipe on the enameled sink.  
She never smoked when attending a patient; she never did so while cooking, nor when she was attending a wedding or birthday, doing business or working at the automail.

There were so many times when Granny didn't smoke, wouldn't smoke, that maybe she shouldn't have smelled of tobbacco.

She did though, and whenever Winry thought of home, of Risimbool, she thought of the light dancing on the grass, warm sunlight and a soft pervasive scent of tobacco.

-

"Do you mind?" An enquiring voice near her head brought her back to Central.  
Winry lifted her head up from their shoulder, looking at the blonde. "I don't."

"Then I won't. I know you; you don't mind, but you'd rather I didn't." He grinned and put the packet back into his pocket.  
She smiled and nestled her head further into the angle between neck and shoulder, the scent of ciggarette smoke impregnated into his collar, skin and hair, humming a recognition of his statement.

"What was all that about different types of people who smoke? You were talking about it a few minutes ago." He peered up at the sky, the angle between shoulder and neck changing. She lifted her head from it, gazing past his face into a distance somewhat after it.

"There are two types of smokers in the world," he turned to face her voice, "those that love smoking and not people, and those that smoke and have people love them."

He bent his head down, their faces met each other, breathing each other in like scented smoke.


End file.
